The Latest News from Phil & Kaja Foglio

Emerald City ComiCon starts tomorrow, and we’re awash in last-minute preparations. We’ll be at booth 704. I see that Carol has posted a map of the hall on our FaceBook page, so you can check that out if you’re interested. We’re right next to the Dark Horse booth, which makes us feel kind of fancy.

Experiment #1 has been celebrating his sister’s absence (she’s off at camp) by blasting the entire oeuvre of Ninja Sex Party at me. He’s not usually allowed to do this, because no matter how funny the music may be, I won’t feel like a responsible parent unless I make her wait until she’s at least as old as her brother is now to openly listen to songs about (lead singer) Danny Sexbang’s penis. I’m such a grouch. Experiment #1, however, is exactly the right age to appreciate this stuff.

The kid’s desk is in my studio, and about a year ago, I over heard him playing some of their music…and asked what it was, because, frankly, it was kind of great. The look on the kid’s face when he had to tell his mom the name of the band was priceless. Later, he told me that he figured I’d either like it, or ban him from the Internet forever, and he wasn’t sure which it would be. Hah. Lucky for him, I never quite got over playing D&D with the boys in high school, and I come down on the “this is hilarious” side. With a lot of eyerolling. Also I like the music.

Here’s an art project I did last week, right before I had to get on a plane for Sacramento. (And yes, Doctor Mondo’s Dangerworks Conclave was a lot of fun!) I wound up staying up all night on this one, because although painting all those little squares looks like it should go really fast, the fact is that somehow it doesn’t. Ugh. Someday I will learn my lesson and not volunteer for things. Still, I love what the folks at the school did with it…the display is fantastic. I made a Girl Genius gift basket for the same charity auction (forgot to get a photo…oh, well…) and it wasn’t anywhere near as nice as this one. It’s hard to pack everything in so it shows, especially when you’re dealing with a pile of flat things (books and stickers and such.)

We’re heading into the last day of Killer Robot Games’ KickStarter for the Girl Genius/Gunnerkrigg Court game Legendary Showdown, Machines and Magic! Above I’ve posted yet another picture of the Moxana fob that is one of the rewards, because I can’t get enough of it. There are several other rewards as well, including the wonderful battle magnet set featuring GG and Gunnerkrigg characters. Please support the campaign if you want one of these great rewards!

It’s Sunday here at the Conclave, and we’re here in the dealer’s room. It’s been a lot of fun! The radio play was fun. This new one has so many characters that we had to pull most of the Friday night audience into the show. Thank goodness for the Aether Brigade, who showed up to read a bunch of parts for us. The Aether Brigade is the local time-traveling comedy troupe, and their show last night was a huge success. They even let me do something. (heh heh heh.)

Cheyenne was here, too, and he spent a lot of the time running a Savage Worlds campaign set in the Girl Genius world. Apparently it was a lot of fun, three people have stopped by to say they loved it. I do know that the materials he’d written up were really fun to read.

James Ernest is also here, demoing a whole bunch of his games. We had a whole pile of his Pairs decks here at the con, so he signed a bunch of those. Now he’s leaving for the GAMA trade show in Las Vegas. Visit him if you’ll be there!

And now, our Q&A session is due to start in about twenty minutes. Are you here at the conclave? Come and ask us questions!

Three days left for the Girl Genius/Gunnerkrigg Court game KickStarter from Killer Robot Games…and we’re counting down to our own KickStarter for the next volume of the Girl Genius Collections. We’re currently at Doctor Mondo’s Dangerworks Conclave in Sacramento California, sitting at a booth in the vendor’s room. Cheyenne is reportedly somewhere, presumably running a game. James Ernest has wandered off to take a nap. Heh.

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Ah, I am a liar. As I was writing the above, Cheyenne stopped by the booth with a bunch of prints to sell. James is now standing within view at another booth, the traitor. I guess he didn’t get that nap.

We’re getting ready to do the latest Girl Genius radio theater play, which Phil finally got finished up yesterday afternoon. I really like it. It’s called “Half a Dozen of the Othar.” In it, we figure out what to do with all the Othar Tryggvassens that we accumulate in “Six of One…”, the preceding play.

Some of you may remember Espionage Cosmetics and the Nailed It! Kickstarter they ran a while back. Well, the Girl Genius nail wraps came in, and Marie, Linda and I drove down to the Espionage offices in Tacoma for the official “pick up your KickStarter stuff” party. The Espionage offices are great, full of the kind of terrific nerdy stuff you’d expect at a company that makes Doctor Who and Firefly-inspired cosmetics. Plus, they fed us cupcakes. Here are the wraps themselves, along with the two I picked up for personal use:

Lovely! …and here I am with three boxes of Girl Genius nail wraps:

These things are insanely easy to use, I slapped a set on right before going onstage at last year’s San Diego Comicon Masquerade. We’ll be selling them on our store soon, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, they have lots of other great designs at espionagecosmetics.com!

If you are a member of Sasquan, the World Science Fiction Convention (http://sasquan.org/), then you should exercise your right to nominate the finalist for the prestigious Hugo Award. Seriously. Get to work, you.

I’ve had a number of people ask me what I’m nominating this year in the Graphic Story category. This is certainly the area where I have the most expertise (for what it’s worth), so I’ve decided to list them for people who may not know who is doing what out there. Again, I must concede that everything on my list is a webcomic. That’s because I think some of the best graphic stories are being done by webcomic creators. Even if you don’t vote for them, check them out (They’re free!)

The Order of the Stick; Blood Runs In The Family. Rich Burlew. Published by Giant in the Playground Games. You think we’re taking a long time telling the Girl Genius story? Ha! Check this out. However Rich cheats by being very funny, damn him. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0976.html)